6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Some of the different technologies that I used when planning and making my media product were:

·         Blogger - To post information and research into the thriller genre and different thriller openings, and to post planning for out thriller opening. This helped in the organisation of our thriller as we could put all of the research together, it also helped with the planning as we could go back and look at all the research that we had done.

·         Search Engines- Such as Google, and YouTube to research into the thriller genre, from this we could view other thriller openings which helped us to find which conventions worked and which didn’t.

·         YouTube and Facebook- After publishing our thriller on YouTube and Facebook we learnt from our target audience what worked well and what didn’t in our thriller, we got useful feedback and constructive criticisms that helped us in our evaluations.

·         Video camera and Digital camera- To shoot our thriller opening and to take images of the setting of our opening, and images relating to the setting to cut into our thriller opening. From using this we learnt how to get effective shots for our thriller, what worked in the mise-en-scene and what didn’t.

·         iMovie- To edit the opening, from using this we learnt how to add transitions, and edit the thriller to make sure that it worked and looked effective.

• iDVD- To add the finishing features to the thriller opening such as a title screen.

During shooting I’ve learnt how to create effective shots through the placement of the camera and I have also learnt how to get steady shots through trial and error whilst shooting. Also during shooting I learnt that using the objects in the shot to frame the shot worked well, such as some of the trees surrounding the house. I also learnt how to set up a shot so that all could be seen and so that the lighting would not be a problems in the shot, I found getting the write light quite difficult making sure that the sunlight wasn't blocking anything in the shot and making sure that the inside shots has enough light so that everything could be seen.

I have learnt and developed a lot of editing skills during the making of this piece; I have improved the continuity of the piece through cutting the clips at the right time, I have also improved in my choice of transitions between each clip making sure I use them at an appropriate place and time, and making sure that they are suitable for that part of the opening and that they don’t look out of place. I also learnt about using fade to black shots rather than leaving them as jump cuts as a way of making the two shots continuity between each other much better. I also, during the editing of this production, learnt how to change the contrast to fix some of the lighting in the shots, in one shot where the main character is getting out of the car, we had to change the contrast so that his head does not blend in with the background of the shot. I also during editing learnt how to add different effect to create a different emotion to the shot, in the flashback we added a blurred effect and made it lighter to try to create the feel of it being like a dream.

I have, through using the Apple Macs, learnt how to import and loop music in Garage Band, piece and edit it so that it still sounds like one continuous piece of sound.